Couple prepare to open their home to travelers

Sunday

May 19, 2013 at 4:00 AM

By Gary GlancyTimes-News Correspondent

Tom Henninger lives his life by the golden rule, and because of this spirit of giving, the Hendersonville resident and his wife, Kathy, have made a vacation suite available to travelers searching for free lodging and new friends.Henninger is among several local members of Couchsurfing, a global network of 6 million travelers in more than 100,000 cities in every country in the world. Started in 2004, the free service connects people who share experiences "ranging from hosting one another in their homes to having a beer to becoming close friends and travel companions," according to Couchsurfing.org.It is built on a foundation of trust, which is enhanced by references and security features once a person establishes a profile on the website. Not only does Couchsurfing provide an affordable option for otherwise out-of-reach destinations for those on a tight budget, but its founders and members also tout the way Couchsurfing fosters intimate cultural exchange in a way money can't buy."Couchsurfing brings people together to share their lives, their homes, their travels and a myriad of life-changing experiences with one another," said Jennifer Billock, CouchSurfing's director of community."People have made lifelong friends, met their spouses, found people to travel the world and do amazing projects of all kinds with."Couchsurfers not only leave the light on for you — many give you a key to their home to come and go during the day.The accommodations, meanwhile, run the gamut from living-room couch to air mattress to fully decked-out guest bedrooms.For those who stay with Henninger, they've got their own mini-apartment that Henninger built in the couple's spacious home perched halfway up Pinnacle Mountain with sweeping views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It comes with a full bathroom, fold-out couch and entertainment center featuring a 40-inch flat-screen television. The space was intended for visiting family and friends, but Henninger decided to also open it up to strangers on Couchsurfing, and he expects nothing in return."I'm just the sort of person who takes in people that are between places to stay, and I've always been that way. As long as I had a place to stay, anybody else was welcome — as long as they were a good person as far as I could tell," said Henninger, who moved here about seven years ago from Tampa, Fla., and is retired after 33 years as a florist.Henninger estimates he took in more than 40 people whom he met at his flower shop in Tampa over the years, helping many through tough times in their lives. It's a practice he and his wife encountered frequently, first-hand, during a 59-day tour of Europe in 1973, when the adventurous couple were in their early 20s."That does pertain to why I like to open my place up to other folks," Henninger said. "We kind of got into a culture over there, which is more universal than it is here in the States, in which it's assumed that young people will take off traveling as part of their education … folks taking off with their backpacks and Eurorail pass or their thumbs up in the air. It was quite common and quite accepted among everybody, and people were very friendly. It might be in a train station or a bus station or something where somebody would come up to you and say they have a place to stay."From the taxi driver in Switzerland who put the couple up for the night in his home, to the old man in Andorra who owned a tent vending company and let them stay in one of his tents, the trip to Europe left an indelible mark on Henninger and his desire to help people.He hosted several Couchsurfers from around the world while living in Tampa — including, ironically, a concert violinist who studied at Brevard College — despite never benefitting from the other end as a "surfer" himself. And while Henninger hasn't hosted anyone yet in Hendersonville, since his rural location isn't on most travelers' radar and because of scheduling conflicts when travelers have asked for a stay, he continues to respond to the requests he does get from time to time."They're traveling through (the area) on a bus and they have a stopover, or they could have a stopover, and need a place to stay for the night," Henninger said as he recalled some recent couch requests. "One person was a vendor for Bele Chere, so he was going into Asheville and needed a place to stay. There was another guy — he was a (professional) soccer player — traveling through town and was responsible for his own travel, and he just needed a place to stay for the night. In every case so far, I've been scheduled to be someplace else at that time, so it hasn't worked out."However, "It's all ready to go whenever we do have a guest."